Hey, upstream listeners today on upstream, we're releasing a conversation I had with kurt ivan earlier this year on turpentine show moment of we discuss media, journalism, power and more. Irvin also offers some advice to elon musk regarding twitter that is interesting to consider in light of elan's recent political activity. Please enjoy the episode.
We ended our last conversation um talking about your upcoming debate with Richard henny a you've since had the debate. Uh this this will be released after you released the the audio of the of the debate um did the debate go the way you hold any reactions, a commentary that you to follow up the before getting .
into some of the, I don't know, fun and I thought, you know I mean, it's always a little difficult, I think, to prepare to ARM to to to talk to me because my views are so land dish.
And so it's sort of like any debate with me is inherently in a way kind of unfair almost, I would say, because you know, I probably if your views are sort of more conventional, like i've probably been exposed to them worth than you've been exposed mine, even with someone you know who sisa as wide ranging and curious as doctor heronry. And so yeah, I thought there was some ways in which maybe he could have been Better prepared. I think, you know, I do have video of the debate.
You know, I think I have some concerns about releasing IT because i'm a little concerned that there's a little bit of the nixon candidate in the sixty issue where everyone everyone who heard IT on radio knew the next in that one. Where's people who thought on TV had the illusion that Kennedy had won? I think just because his, his, his hair, makeup, people did a Better job. I would say the real well, the written now, the real problem I had in that debate is that simply, you know, how can I say, IT, i'm fatter than Richard, i'm just fatter, you know. And I think that gives them kind of a physician phya, physio amic advantage in terms of how is perceived as a sort of more, more dynamic individual that I think i'm going to have to struggle to to a to compete with.
And so yeah so so so so I think other than than that aspect, which is you know this is really nothing I mean know Richard himself has this great peace um how he used to be fat, you know and um imagine being fat and looking like that he cared IT sorry on the worst and and he conquered IT and now he he's like he's pretty presentable and he has this you know really fine figure so so yeah I think that kind of my main concern with debate I thought I thought honor is the host, did an amazing job. S and and I thought that was you IT was a lot of fun. And the venue, by the way, learn who we are, I think sure who you know, not who we were.
We didn't lie about who we were. We just didn't bring IT up, really. And so I think they learned who we were just as the event was about to start, which you know um and so I I don't know full by k IT was an excEllent location and I don't think will be coming back to IT. Now you eric were present you were present at this event. I would you you make of IT I was present.
I thought I was very entertaining. Um I thought um you guys both brought uh, good energy and IT was very funny. Funny was I was insightful and he was a great moderator. IT was a great crowd and I think everyone had a great time. I hope I hope you guys make this um .
I hope do debates and I regularly a there's a lot there's a lot of fun people that i'd like to do that to not you know as as as was sex not not sure everyone would consent but you know I certainly have I have fantasies of the betting a lot of people, well.
maybe we go next maybe.
maybe, maybe you know where is Chris? You know, really, as you may have seen Chris with Christina, I I was a Christian event in manhattan and he took his sulpho with me and post to that, and he got a lot of flag for that, which really, you know sort of demonstrates a kind of A H A match character increased of, i've abused him terribly.
But you know, the thing is that it's just like you how can I say this when people abuse you terribly for something that you have in fact done you it's just like you're duty to sit there and take IT like a man and have the experience about IT either that or you know that's that's like what I would like to think was going on there. Maybe he just considers me kind of a clown, really a comic figure, and therefore he doesn't care. But you know, when someone's willing to take take flag to be connected to you that I that I was just .
allowed to me yeah cool um well, I want to point to a quote in the debate that you had towards the end and then we we can unpack IT a bit further. So let me briefly read. And then you said you said you can't have harvard or new york times shaped holes in society.
You need a shared collective truth and a shared educational base. The real energy that's positive and productive comes not from burning down the old institutions, but by building the new institutions of the new regime. And those institutions can be built within the current regime.
How also you're going to have the new regime. So you need to build the next regime as a real thing, somehow existing in this bizarre world, with harvard, york times already existing. So what is the same more about this? Or what is the road map to building .
the what is map to building the new? Well, so yeah, yeah, we could you sort of accurately pointed that to? That is kind of a trapdoor beneath which lays, you know, hidden and and favourable, gulped. And some of these goals, you know, have to be filled from you, Frankly, Frankly, Frankly, Frankly, for your own protection.
But just if you there's sort of within within the space once you've basically determined that you're thinking in terms of creating a new world and you're imagining a new world and then, of course, obviously your first steps to say what parts of this new world can be built within the old world and how can these parts existing within the old regime helps us create the new regime. So one example would be, and this is this was kind of a popular perspective in the united states, even twenty or thirty years ago, and i'm sold that I remember this. One possible way to approach this question would be, well, you know, one of the things that really makes a state, a state is the military.
So let's start a militia, right? So you know, the thing is that that and that's been you know like like that's that's a time honored practicin in american history but at times, whether we like IT or not and some of student sometimes don't are, times have changed. And uh you know even in the thousand nine hundred and eighty, you know over the nineties, what was the golden age of like the the mhic, an militia?
You know, that approach seemed a little tired, a little sort of developmentally delayed and IT sort of ends up in this kind of lappy world of january six where you literally, I think actually some of them had like collapsed patterns. And then there was, of course, the viking helmet. That's arms in the sense, you know, but, but, but, you know, sort of so, you know, there are various approaches to this sort of interesting question of building.
The next regime is a legitimate institution within the current regime. And one of those clearly is that actually because you're doing this kind of crazy thing and you and the only reason you can sort of even think in anything like those terms is really the thing that very few of the opponents of this regime sort of notice and therefore can take advantage of, which is decentralized quality. You know, everyone who is basically kind of because we're all americans here, when we want to basically get mattered, our government, we're always looking for king George the third.
Like, where's king George to the third in this? Know he hiding in so so we're like basically like, you know ah I don't like this whole vaccine covet thing uh, let's get foul. cher. Yeah, sure. Okay, you know it's kind of crazy that he of created this and then was called on to clean IT up.
You know, you know, IT like, did you see that that the minister is true novel? But you know, you know, I mean, someday all those little echo health meetings and all the stuff on that slack thread will be that will be on a many series, we hope. But in any case, you know, point is there is ten guys who want to as fifty is one hundred guys who want a job that can have IT.
And you know so the when you're sort of looking for centralization, you're doing the wrong thing. But when you're taking advantage of decentralizing, you're doing the right thing because actually they're sort of nothing in this system where the whole reason why you can have this sort of avenue toward creating a new world is that you don't you're actually not up against any kind of centralized structure. You're not a soviet dissident.
You're not a chinese divine, right? So, and because you can do that, you can do, H. G. Wells had this wonderful term. He actually had this great description of kind of the modern system of government in this thing he wrote in the thirties called the open conspiracy. And so, you know, this sort of the open conspiracy was the kind of conspiracy of intellectuals to take over the world, which, in case you hadn't notice, you happened, right? You know, in so, so, so from my aric graphs and politicians.
And so, you know, to the extent that we have sort of an open conspiracy y of our own, in a way, perhaps we're getting a little warmer and you say, okay, well, what's really even more central in a way to the nature of of a regime than the army? So one example where you go further down is you get to the intelligence service. And there's in a way, I think there's you arguably like some continuity between like the modern between like James born english intelligence servants and like crowl's bym aster or something, these threads sort of go away.
There's a lot of continuity and intelligence services. And so it's clearly something that sort of cord and government. But what does that mean to have a private intelligence service? okay. Well, you know open source information, you know you've got um you know um a strap for or whatever whatever whatever. You know these are things that exist.
And when you look at sort of the theory of intelligence, the theory of intelligence is very much that sort of you're making you sort of making the correct sovereign sions because you have sort of really true information that isn't being like twisted by policy on the way. And of course, I always is twisted by policy on the way, and but it's not supposed to be a and so. Moreover, there is an interesting if you go back and you need as we sort of get warmer and more realistic, i'm not saying this is the sort the right way to do IT.
But as we get warmer and more realistic, because you remember, we started with with a militia idea, which we're acting to do. And as we get warm and more realistic, we realized that if you read the book that's in a way that kind of finding document of twenty years, century government by media, which is walter lime's public opinion, there's something that he does there, which seems very weird to a modern reader, which is the equate journalism with intelligence. And you just like, wow, journalists aren't spot.
Well there I mean, there there there 是 the expelled trading information from the government without a any specific permission to do so。 I it's like when sometimes, you know a journals will sort of run, arrive of some other power within the government like judeh or James risen. And there is some description in the James risen trial.
I think he pissed off N S. A. Or something. And there is some description in the trial of the methods that he used to get information from sources.
And these were very much the methods of espino age. Like dead drops, like all this crazy shit, right? And i'm just like, oh, I see, right? know.
And so actually, like when you go from intelligence to journalism, and you're like, in a way, wait, if intelligence and journalism are the same thing, you know, at least we're starting to have something that resembles of business because, you know, one of the biggest problems was starting with the militias. How does the militia fund itself? right? There's a militia of business.
What are you going to do like lute in pile's and like then, you know, sell the stuff on this drop ship at on amazon? Know it's hard to know. It's hard to make this kind of start up pitch for the michigan militia.
Most has to be like kind of members supported like npr. You know it's a tough slog and and so then when you get to like intelligence, you're like, okay, strap for bismark, something companies will pay money for a strategy intelligence again, it's like it's kind of niche. But then when you get to journalism, you're just like, wow yeah media appearance right? You know somewhere around here or like media appearance. So this can be something that is an we can start to imagine something that in some way self funding or self self subsisting will continue .
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Now you know then we're like, okay. So really in a sense, what you're saying is if you're found in, say, a new newspaper, now this is still not quite right. We will go on will fix IT more. But if you're finding, say, a new a new press outlet, a new media company or something, which you're really saying is that the ultimate goal of your media start up is to become the state media company of the next regime.
And so like the task than your town or npr or something like that, right? You know, to become, in a sense, weather formally or informally official, right? And so you know that's a sort of an enormous pretence. It's an enormous ambition. It's sort of imposes things on your potential ambition that like it's just sort of like no, in silicon valley terms, it's maybe just like one of these you know shoot of the moon, things like, you know the founders of invidia imagine that one day they would be a three trillion dollar company. Maybe didn't completely surprise them.
I don't know you and and so you you know when you when certainly when you're doing a startup, especially if you're looking for a start up type funding, you really have to have a sort of vision this large and this broad in your mind because maybe you won't hit IT, maybe he had something else, but you know what like at least you're hitting the balls hard as you can. So you know to the extent that basically you're like, okay, society, we have these amazing communication technologies in the twenty first century. Society is always organized on the basis of, like you know, a modern industrial societies organized on the basis of sort of communicating ideas and having in those ideas create consent in what guy tono moscow called the political formula.
So you you're sort of all imagining, not only you're imagining this is a major agency formula and formal of any kind of next regime is maybe also, in a sense, helping you get there, okay. But it's it's doing this, of course, in a very, very, very legitimate way, right? And in the the even you know it's like it's notable, for instance, that you know I don't think, for example, James okey, you know, I respect to keep I don't know that he's going about IT an entirely the right way.
But you'll notice that win James o keep breaks the rules that sort of like the january six demonstrators s breaking the rules like you know they get you know fine for like you know, Carrying Carrying a cane into I mean, it's just like the, who is that who said, who said your act? Jones, you know, who are Donald trump? You know, who is that your fruit?
You know who who who said, you know, for my friends, mercy, for my enemies, the law. I mean, what they're doing with trump now goes way beyond and it's it's it's and and it's it's like a it's it's delegitimizing in a sense where they don't sort of see the level of damage that it's doing to their legitimacy. Like you're really going to go out straight out and say that maroo g go is worth eighteen million dollars and that he saying it's worth worth than eighty million dollars is like fraud.
And like, you know, i'm just like, you know, you can see pictures, right? You know like, uh and so you know, in any case, you know, there are many, many things that are sort of grievous, grievously wrong with the present powers that be in kind of public communication. However, again, when you take this kind of libertarian standpoint and say, wow, the lying new new york times, the lying new york times, the mainstream media go oke go broke, right? You've heard these months before.
Do they feel, do they feel to you? Like, this is working, you know, what do you feel in charge, you know? And so, like like, i've seen a lot of conservative media in my time.
I've consumed a lot of conservative media. If, like, you know, conservative media was was crack, I think I would have put as much time into IT. I was a lot of a lot of crackers, maybe have a lot of crack dealers.
Okay, so so like I know the crack is right, and i'm just there to tell you, I don't think it's accomplish much. And I think IT has many, many structural problems with IT. And so you know I think it's sort of interesting to say to derive when you're saying, okay, you know, creating sort of the organs of the new state before there is a new state.
Okay, that's super interesting. Done who's had that idea before um pretty sure you don't want to dig around and look for who's had that idea before. Um but like you know implicitly that sort of dual status of like here's something that's gonna a pillar of a future order and also kind of a spear that will help us get to that future future order in the sense of like information world affair that is actually think fundamental to sort of all conservative or distant media ideas.
I think IT just helps to state that sort of more explicitly in a way when you state IT more explicitly, of course, when you stay you anything explicitly, uh you know on the internet you you attract ridicule, especially if your fat. But but. The the the but you know I think stating things explicit has value and that IT allows you to understand the logic.
And so you know what you're really doing in a sense when if you're saying, hey, we would like to sort of create this thing that can stand on its own in the present hard times, but will sort of blows them into the sort of the trunk of a kind of new information system in, you know, some imagined utopia, but will still be pretty cool and present if there's a number of ways you can go about that. So one of the sort of most straightforward ways to go about that is to say, well, OK media is a business. And our goal in a business, as with any business, is to make money, right? Very true.
Now I think it's more true to say that's not really true. Their goal is to maximize the capital value of the business. And the thing is, in a lot of businesses, if you think in a short term wave or this is a long term way, you can do really well in the short term in ways maybe they keep working in a long term, but that are really sort of limit the horizon of where you can go with that.
So if for an example of this, recently, I went down to fenix to go beyond the charlie curt show, and I have the utmost respect for charlie curt, I was very impressed by his performance. I thought he had a very different strategy than tucker carlson when doing me, because tucker just let me talk, which was kind of cool. Where is charlie really worked to make sure I was still in an interview, and charly really understood what he was talking about.
He really got IT. He didn't necessarily agree, but he got as much as I could. Of course, I sort of moderated my message.
I'm not gonna on charlie kirk in question. The american revolution, oh my god, is still less the glorious revolution. You know, IT was glorious.
IT was definitely goria in the american revolution. kingdoms. D that okay, right? So we didn't really go there. But but you know, that's about as far.
But the thing is, I couldn't help but notice when I was on change, kirk, that there was sort of this interesting relationship because I fifty and charlie thirty. And I would say on average, this may be a bit of a character. It's probably a character ter in both ends. But IT might well be true that his average fan is older than me and my average fan is Younger than him and because you know what, he really does very, very well as he speaks to the bombers and oh my god, what a great generation we ever bombers that way, right? You know it's fun.
I was just watching for a short direction um you know my son whose thirteen is into watching a war war movies, war things right and and we watched a we watch we started to watch this new series the pacific in which is about which is sort of a remake of bander brothers in in the pacific theatre, right and in done in the same kind of way and I was just like, now we have to watch the original bander brothers. We watch the original bander brothers. It's amazing.
It's so, it's so accurate. It's so real. It's so like even I don't think they could be honest of them.
They could be as respectful of notes now as they were then. But also like, you know, you watch band of brothers and the soldiers look like soldiers. They look like they're actually like, you know, people would stand this way.
They would walk this way. Where is basically you watch the pacific, even their technical advisers, that seem to have forgotten how a fucking soldier with fucking standard fucking salute world bwd fucking too right. So great generation, wonderful generation. On the other hand, love you guys, bombers. All you boomers are there.
On other hand, you basically that's not a leading indicator when you're fans are rumors, right? And and so what you're looking for, if you're looking for maximizing sort of if you're looking for going in the direction to the level of trust that a state media company should have or a strong state, and obviously you want your state to be as strong as possible by right, your state media company should have two qualities. One is always fucking right, and also everyone fucking believes IT.
Okay, that's your optimal state of like infallibility. Like everybody always believes you, not because they are brain wash, but because he actually always right. Very, very, very.
A regime that's got this going on is very, very difficult to resist. Let me tell you, right, you know, and can be done. I has been done, takes a lot energy, right? And so you know, both those things are also very reasonable goals for a private media company. Now the thing is, when you're looking for to get people to believe you completely, to maximize they're trust in you, there's again a number of different ways to do this.
For example, you could say, why do people trust in new york TTS? Uh, well, you might observe, for example, that in york times I has a brand which is written in a black letter english thought so you might call your, you might adopt the same graphic design mode you might call and you might say, we're journalists, we have a newspaper and you would call your newspaper something like, I don't know, the post millennial, sorry, Matthew. The and and IT would have IT would attempt simply through sort of brand you know brand, you know, mimicry.
You buy this like cheap you know chinese known name products that will be like he on or something like it's not a handi, it's not a honda, it's like yona you and and so you could sort of APP those signals at a very low level. I think there was one election in massachuset, like the sixties of the seventies, where they are actually like three or four candid. It's them, john Kennedy running, running for office.
You so so you can mimic the sort of branding style you can say, hey, we're just like this. And in a way, you know so much of even for people to say when they're competing with these organizations to call themselves journalists, as, I think, a huge, huge area, you shouldn't do anything like that. You shouldn't lab or imitate journalism.
You shouldn't pretend to have that. You certainly shouldn't say, oh, I think I have the privileges of journalism so I can do like undercover Operations where I like sneak in and whatever no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's really, really bad.
Don't ever do that, right? Because you're sort of it's very beta IT looks fake. No one will actually take you seriously in mad. Everybody knows the new york times and the washington post or real newspapers. The new york post and the washington times are not real newspapers.
One of the domus things that was done in righting media of all time, really, I think, but also in the twenty twenty election was the handling of hundred baron's laptop, where they're basically like we're going to like right stories based on them and we're going to publish them in the post to new york post, the highly influential new york post, right? And I know I would have been far Better, far more powerful, far more effective to just use fortune, right? you. And so so like far more effective. And and i'm not saying that would have been the best thing, right.
But IT was just IT just IT was like developmentally delayed, you know and I just an unbelievable level, right, you know and and the the and that's that's because of this kind of lopping instant, right? And actually like if you're looking to sort of be and become the real thing, in my view, you're actually you're not you should understand part of the strategy that the pilots and the souls burgers and the old sort of bearings of the press used to create the system in their time. You can't ARP you're not doing the same thing over again.
You know people you know will come and will say dome's IT like you and invest by the new york times. Well, first role, elan must cannot buy the new roles that is not for sale, even the special magic h shares that run IT a you know, I always like to say that our country is still, in fact, actually is a monarchy in the most important sense, because its most powerful government institution, that your toes is a fifth generation heedin monarchy. Point is jeff bezos, both washington post.
He doesn't own the post. He sponsors that he can far with the news desk. The salt burgers are the last of the old press dynasty that actually have influence over the paper. And I think actually some of them, like twenty twenty one explosion problem, is that the current soult burgers a little bit of, yeah, we right.
You know what can jeff bezos, due to the washing post what elan did to twitter?
Because he would just reduce IT to the status of the washington times? He would basically, he could kill IT. He could buy and and bert IT down. That's actually probably what you should do. No, actually I have a Better example.
He would reduce IT to the status of, are you ready what news week, right? News week used to be part of the mainstream media and now is a fringe publication done, you know, like, okay, you might remember IT from your dentist office, but it's not the same news week that was in your dentist office. That news week was part of the government.
This news week is a basically a bunch of cranks. With all due respect to the wonderful cranks, you are trying to make a go IT. right? And so, you know, don't do that.
Don't buy news week, right? Don't become news week, don't use the news week fall, right? okay?
These things are all mistakes, right? And so when you're looking, you know again, we've kind of we've gone from like mistakes in in the category of mistakes not to make. We've gone from start of militia two news week.
okay. So we're getting Better. Like this is a kind of you know this is kind of idea, a kind of know page of this on pitching you.
This is a kind of dma pitch where you're starting very, very, very long business from the pile of gold, right? You and and you're working we're working through progressively less stupid ideas that are still stupid, right? And so you know, I think we're hopefully now in a position to almost leave the area of stupid ideas and getting to non stupid ideas.
So, okay, what's not stupid? Well, two things. One is that if you look at why people believe things, you want people to believe in you, right? Belief is power, by definition, as what IT is, you want people to believe you.
So there's two ways, basic ways, that you get people to believe you. One is the way in which sort of liberals believe that works is you have to be right, and then people will believe you. okay? I mean, IT certainly helps.
And the thing is, not only does IT help you, I think that. Although I don't want to lie. And so I wouldn't say it's necessary, it's not in all cases necessary that the people can be lied to.
I just don't think that from this position, there's ever a situation in which not being right. And i'm not just talking about being technically right. I'm talking about being like really deeply right.
You know, it's it's A I don't think there's ever a position in which it's actually useful in sort of a business sense from the perspective of you doing something like this to not just be telling the truth. okay. So good start.
Good start. You're right. You're not just sort of technically right, you know in the way that somebody y's x wife might be technically right.
You're actually like deeply right, you know, in the way that your own divorce filings are right, you know and they and and and and up. And so that's good. That's good.
That's good. That's good. okay. But but is is that is enough now it's definitely not enough because actually IT helps. But if you're looking IT and IT helps with all sorts of unsubtle things, lots of subtle things as well as these unsubtle things like it's really useful and important to always be right.
And and in fact, I would say that if you're trying to do something like this, clearly, the more of people do with the Better. You know, for example, you if there's one thing that still works in modern journalism, in a sense, in its own sense, it's fact checking. Uh, you know, with that peace, the advances fair did on me, they I hadn't experience with the conn.
I spent hours on the phone with the country fact chequers. I went very deeply into the question of whether I could be considered to you. This is fact and and the the the answer is no and and the the you know but but like so you know don't don't have a black letter fun in a word like posted your times in your name but maybe have fact jackers you or something like that, something even like that right?
So the thing is, yeah actually to be, you know, you should obviously be much less careless with the truth than the new york times. And with that goes for both the sort of technical got all the eyes and cross l the tea truth and the broader, more abstract Leopold von franca, as IT really was truth. Where you're not actually being a know, as I said to someone in in the context of of who was having one of these in the court, you know disputes really you know to lie is to do anything that causes someone else to have a nice impression of reality, right? And and there's a lot of ways of lying, you know yeah and and so okay, tell the truth.
But really what's important about, if you want your ideas to win, that is total, logically identical, was saying that you want your ideas to be fashionable. Because taught logically, by definition, influences ideas. Fashions flow from the point of most more fashionable to less fashionable.
That only flowed downward. Another way to say that, sort of some little more provocatively, is something I often say, which is that the quality of a social network can only decline. So because of that, if you want to maximize the size of your network, it's actually a very bad incentive to maximize the initial size of IT.
Because what you actually want to be doing is a bread first search. You know where you're basically filling the pyramid downward and you feel every level before you get to the next level down. And by the time your platform has to learn how to deal or your network has to learn how to deal in a productive way with the scum of the earth, you already have everyone in there. So on a social network, for example, initially, ally, you're filling the top of the pyramid, and you have no moderation at all, because your only moderation is user quality.
And by the time you're down here, you basically need you sort of the tools of like jane and chained to keep the bottom of a pair of people at right, right, you know, and and and the shadow banning, you know, hell banning, like literally using word hell, right? And IT used to be considered unethical, but it's now it's sort of more thought of as Normal, right? That's the life course of a social network, right? You know.
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So entering at the top is really, really important. And so basically, you know it's like, for example, you for a concrete distinction between these two ways of doing alternative media. There was a film that came out last year about what was the called by child sex trafficking.
Um can remember a you can't remember, I can't .
remember either. But IT was a about child's sex traffic king. IT made, I think, solid eight figures. IT was a solidly profitable movie that's that I know easy thing to do. IT was about child sex trafficking and there's a friend of mine who says child's sex sex trafficking in a way it's like the police killing on our black men of like conservatives like IT happens but but maybe it's not as often as you think.
疼。 So there's that right. But you know more to the point, right? This is a this is a profitable market to milk, like fox news is made a lot of money. But the thing is basically because you're not really penetrating into the core of the elites, you can never go up market, you can only go down market. So you're this kind of like geo, in which case if you kind of remember your a little original kind of political goals because remember you're kind of aiming for world domination, least national domination here, right? You're basically saying, well, we're gna sort of acquire the consent of like this like sub pyramid of the pyramid which doesn't even contain the top and then the sub pyramid of the pyramid is going to um you know I rise up and you know dominate a the other other spy, you know I don't know, you know, with its biking horn, helmet or something, right? And so the thing is, it's very limiting when you take that direction and if you take the reverse direction of saying, you know, why did why did facebook kill my space?
Because my space has you know fifty million users but facebook was started in the bike room of the poor client if they're been start at harvard with the personal on being the most elite was called a final club um you know at harvard I think you'd i've been started upstairs in the poor selling probably you know even your cereal would be facebook grounded by now you know and so so the thing is that basically when you're building something that you intend to be a very, very low time preference, long term, long arc thing, you're not just looking to get in in cash out quickly. You you make a movie like the child's x trafficking movie. This just call IT child's x trafficking.
You know, you're in and now you have a profit. The checks, you know, all these checks from that movie have a landed. Now they're come into people's mailboxes, right you know whether when you're basically building something that is you know to borrow a phrase, a novice auto sicklen which I believes new order the centuries um and it's on your dollar bill like that's the kind of ambition that founders should have founders of anything should be building a novas ora is a right you know and and and so not least when you have sort of ambitions of the scale certainly the people who created with the new york times as IT is um where I don't think they would be at all surprised that the time has the position and importance that, that holds today.
I think they'd be like, yeah, were we were trying to do that? Pretty good, pretty good. You can touch IT up a little here and there.
Pretty good. And so you know that's that's the kind of that's the kind of ambition that you have. And so then you basically are like, okay, you're kind of narrowing this down.
You're like, I need to build really high trust and really high engagement among in the sort of highest status context that there is. I need to be shooting fuck IT. I need to be shooting at the art world.
I need to be shooting at the fashion world. I need to be at the piano right now. Basically, like, like, know there's absolutely nothing wrong with shooting those people.
They're very disaffected, in fact, no. And they they just like don't come up and be a fucking pro, like don't bring the peasants in the pitch works in. Don't talk about child's sex trafficking.
They are probably do child sex traffic c you know. And you know they they it's not what you think you know, but. In any case, you know like IT or not, right, you know you're there to actually win.
You're not there to and and so actually essentially producing the most educing, not like convinced, not covering, but always producing basically the most elite elites that you have is sort of always the best and worst powerful move. When you look at basically what brought down the eastern block, IT was basically IT was not the workers in the presence. IT was not.
Or wells prose in case or a well in his book says the future boys of the prose is not right, so the future does not belongs to the roles. And and what brought on the soviet union was basically a more or less a decision art scene. For example, in the, in the check, you know, charter a, what was a charter? Eighty eight charter to seventy seven sort of had, this has his name like an A R group, right?
Uh, you know, a major, a major know impulse in the a, in the whole chic dissident movement was this band. IT was this. IT was called plastic people of the universe. And IT was a Frank's APP, a cover band, right? And so basically, like you know, the Frank's upper cover ban idea actually has a lot more sort of political relevance in Petered re.
And let's get americans really disturbed a child's sex trafficking and then, you know, tell them how you know leon pana wasn't pana well who was a guy who had the domer thing in his fricking call way um you know whatever whatever right you know I an it's terrifying they're doing you know pic get is real right but I tell me what a pizza related to begin our handkercher map is tell me tell me and up and then you know once i'm like, oh ah of course of course a piece are related. Any different map? Yes yes yes.
I'll admit that there's nothing yet all going on there. Ah you know in in the the um um but but yeah you know so you're basically like, okay, so you need content that's like you sort of deeply true in a way that like actually that appeals to the most sophisticated people basically on the planet and the most fashionable people on the planet that's gotto give them it's got to give them in a sense of sense of, you know like when you look at the actual behavior of our our lives, the I mean, our whole society is incredibly ironic. But of course, the higher rap you go at, the more ironic and frivolous you get.
People like to be shocked. They like to be surprised. They like to, you know, epa la borge wa is absolutely, you think. And the thing is, once every borge wa housewife has a black lives matter sign in the law, of course, you're just seeing all of these opportunities for appeal, a borge war in the direction that uh, is not the traditional one, right?
And so actually like targeting sort of the best people with like a really sophisticated shit that basically couldn't be made for whatever reason, couldn't be made by these institutions as they are, or couldn't be produced by these institutions as they are, that creates really deep kind of personal engagement. And so you sort of you want to create deep personal engagement. You want that engagement to be with the institution, not the individual.
That's really important. You know when you're read the new york times, you're engaged within new york times. You're not engaged with you Andrew rose black or you know who ever is writing a piece today, right?
You know and and the the like if the economist by not having bion doesn't excEllent job of that. And so you basically want you want really deep engagement. You want really deep connection that biases you more. Tour IT sends you more and sort of subscription directions for ple.
Because you know what a lot of this boomer conservative content, for example, does is a very late engagement with a very large number of of boomers and the and you know I mean a movie like child sex trafficking. I've just call child sex trafficking dot com a movie like child sex trafficking dot com. You're like you go you spend your eleven box, you get super disturbed of at the child sex trafficking.
You go home, you know there's no you don't join an anti sex trafficking like league, you know go around late night beating up sex traffickers s no know and you know the direct action against child sex trafficking, right going up to random you know um parents, children in the airport and being like are you really his father? Ah it's just as no engagement. There's no commitment.
They're sort of no debt. And so you want basically you want to build you know your audience is the audience of any sort of media thing that you're doing is itself a social network. That social network can be sort of a passive social network in terms of its just the people who experience this thing or you can actually organize IT to some extent, that creates even more kind of cult energy and you basically need to make sure that this cut kind of does not grow sort of routines is sort of a leader and its quality.
And you know the best way to have maintained, of course, perc, the best way to have maintain, you know, the perceived quality of content is for your content simply to be excEllent. And you know, excEllent sort of gatekeepers in kind of that sort of community is excEllent. I mean, if you look, for example, like like, like what you're essentially doing in terms of kind of non ideological media strategy in something like this is you essentially have a cross over strategy.
So if you look at sort of both the punk word and the hippy world, these were both very successful. They were not really ideological. Well, the hipp he is kind of war, of course but the end, but maybe in the end um you know they certainly had a lot of ideological success, they had a lot of cultural success and they had a lot of commercial success. I mean, you know the reason why David geffen has the author size of battle ship as he basically got in into the hippy world when I was just a subculture and he made some very shrug. Commercial decisions we're starting at. And so when you're basically imagining kind of building this thing, which is, you know sort of the official media of the future regime that makes them and away the official media of the subculture before everyone in the future says, gosh, we don't really know to do, and sort of turns to the culture for, and has that subculture sort of cross over and either infect the mainstream, become the mainstream or whatever? And if you want this to work in a commercial sense, and I don't see why you shouldn't uh you should basically see your subculture targeting institution become a mainstream institution through that.
So it's as if like that tracks was now like a major or sub pop was like now like a major according level right um which sadly I don't think happened but what happened is so pop do you know this fate of so pop but that was no vanas ob of course our label and so you're basically saying, okay, the subculture has to be sort of elite enough that joining IT is not downscale and its content has to be not just in truth, but in generally inequality has to be superior to the sort of existing sources of content and you know and IT has to generate very, very deep attachment or commitment or connection. The subculture has to have kind of high osbeck, high engagement. You you're essentially starting a church that you know people are going to a one day give their life.
I mean, not definitely not. But you know the definitely not. Okay, not that time, different period in history, not going to happen now 我 you right right right exactly yeah month and which will not put their names on any kind of a list that well, I mean these lists are never collected anyway you know in the the yeah I mean it's not it's not a place that like yeah I mean, no one would never, right you know, I won't worry, just don't worry.
You know like like and and bitcoin, bitcoin, I take bitcoin, turn little cash, turn little cash, right? And and so in any case, I would say that having arrive having sort of gone through that idea that sort of makes you arrive at a set of parameters for that, I think govern anything successful that you would do in those areas. And I think those parameters are still pretty good.
And I think you know all a lot of people out there, if they follow this alone um and somewhat convoluted discourse who are town and an energetic might feel energy to say, okay, what can I what can I build within these parameters? And I think there's a lot of things you can build them in these parameters, right? You know, it's for example, like one of the ideas that i've always been, I think maybe root claim is the closest thing to this that exist right now.
I don't learn how good IT is, but a is basically just sort of the problem of like specifically of truth adjudication could get a lot Better than the message used by than your times or even by wikipedia. And if you imagine basically build or me even community notes and you know, if you imagine basically a truth machine that that worked, you know that for example, you could connect wikipedia truth machine that worked instead of saying that just literally connecting IT to reliable sources. And by the way, if you go to the wikipedia page for reliable sources and you ask you're like, okay, wp.
Colin, reliable sources. Wp, common sources. What is a reliable source and you're going, and I will explain in someone more words than this, that a reliable source is a source which is reliable, right?
You know, it's to like how I become reliable source, how achieve the status of the europe, how we could like maybe demote the europe if it's being, you know, was reliable. Maybe this used to be we demote in your time. Maybe the post millennial is actually more reliable.
Totally silent on the subject, right? You know, really entirely puns. And you know, I mean, IT would be need, if like catholic, could take over wikipedia, basically be like a reliable source as a source approved by the pope.
And that would be much worth straight forward. And everyone would know what's going on. Of course, if you want that already have that it's the catholic tholen and cycle pedia. It's a great site, but I think that was last updated in eighteen eleven but um not kidding catholic and take lib is an impressive thing you know and it's totally online too because it's so old but you know yeah I mean, so the thing is when you're imagining when you're imagining literally, you know okay, so so far you we're imagining here are the prommers which define the set of things which you know correspond this sort of amazing like you know heroic journey from like I start my little media company to like you know I am the I am the deputy chairman of task, right you know and and it's a long arch goes through A A lot of complicated things um you know and if we move sort of to the end of the arc and again, and I think this tells us a lot about sort of regime change as IT happens, is like one sort of fun way to think about regime change.
When you get yourself out of the twenties, th century is late to say what happens with wikipedia, right? And so your answer for sure, what should happen with a wikipedia basically to me, first of all, if you haven't thought concretely about this, like how are you thinking about power at all, right? You know and because actually the power, you know, it's very interesting like you went to wikipedia like twenty years ago, you know, IT was still in sort of the golden age of the liberator.
IT flourished. IT was believable at that time. And you can go to the wikipedia page on, say, like racing intelligence and they have just full of like truth bombs from, like real signs everywhere, right? You know?
Now, needless to say, I A race science, as some of us color, is very much vanished from recommendation. And what happened is the wikipedia basically attracted people who cared about power more than are attracted people who care about about. And, you know, that's what happens when you have a power of vacuum. That's what happens when you were a libertate, even just liberal, and you actually believe that the marketplace of information can be used to guide the state.
And what happens when you decide that the marketplace of information can be used to guide to the state is that the state is essentially leaking power back into the marketplace of information, which distorts the marketplace of information and causes these horrible basement dwelling parasites that currently editor a pedia to basically take control. And so when you say OK, I don't believe in this anymore. You really have to go all the way and say no, right? Really the mindset, if you want a liberal approved mindset for like a really thorough regime change.
okay. Can I here you have you've been a little quiet arc. So let me ask you, let me quiz you a little bit. And what is what is, what is a regime change that happened in the lives of those now living is completely approved of by libs and was so radical that are involved, literally destroying all the books, then in print, starts with A D and ends with fiction.
Uh, the notification .
do notification. That's right. They literally pop the book city and burn them. That was just a publicity done, done outside the institute for sexual research. Like, you know, that was, you know, like, no, they pulled them.
They made them into the toilet paper like you know and and they also melt IT down the bookstore of non approved books in the us. But that's a different story and very few people know about that. And um the the but but that was the the like.
I think you will agree that the notification was a success. I think you will agree that the german tiger has been thinly guilded. Others just smooth skin there IT wasn't even exchange, right?
You know this is a completely peaceful animal and and you know they will never cause problems. They're just basically, but they're always there for energy, right? You and and that's the germans of today, right? So this was a successful regime change.
And the thing is basically, was IT a little Ricky IT was a little richy was a little rough, ugly, yes. So maybe resume change in japan is a slightly Better example. We don't want to go into the right vice and larger, you know, any these like really disturbing historical directions, right? But, but, but point is IT worked.
And, you know, now imagine the allies are occupying germany, one thousand hundred and forty five, but alternate. We're old. We got the internet, we have wikipedia.
But because wikipedia is created and not see germany, and editors like to be powerful and don't like to get something to dark out, right? Wikipedia is, in fact, not a pedia, right? Everything in IT is not he right, like the page on jews, right? The whole you page is probably hold complex on he brake studies, whole area needs to be completely rework, right? You know? And so when you think about sort of the answer to this question, of course, it's completely obvious.
Let's say, obviously, they going to do this in germany, but let's say you're retaining freedom of speech. You're like, okay, we're going to do this, but we're going to have free of speech. So like what that means is that, you know, we're going to have freedom of speech, but we're gonna compete on a level playing field, still less of playing field, which gives the inertia of the old regime a special advantage. So as far as the domain wikipedia dot work, we're taking that, okay.
Now that doesn't mean the old wikipedia editors is like blob, like, you know, sort of gender monsters and in their basements h everywhere um you know with the tremendous intelligence and energy and they're like you know extremely pallid complexes like cannot reveal against us and create a fork of wikipedia right but here's what's onna happen to wikipedia argue dot ogg which is basically like we're going to see that and then we're gona hire all the right wing intellectuals to fix IT and they're gonna do IT faster and a harder and Better than the old kip dia editors. And like we need an army. We need to employ an army because we actually have an army.
We're going to use this army, and we're going to do a Better fucking job than the old editors. And actually, if they want to have a work that will compete with us, they won't have the funding. They won't have the feeling of power.
They won't have eventually they'll just sort of drift off into being another like weird crank clone of wikipedia like metai dia, which actually exists, which is the not wikipedia like you've seen like metairie conservative dia. I think box day had this thing in psychometric galaxy as something something, something you know, the thing is that that basically the failure of those things sort of shows you that kind of taking liberalism seriously and just sing. We're competing on a level playing field in the marketplace of ideas and we're just going to be like true or whatever is like a complete non starter like those projects do. They just don't have the energy to compete. It's a complete your address.
Would your advice to elan musk be that he should instead of that, he should be, as sensa says, the old regime, but just in the opposite way or not really by elon be.
what would my advice to elon be? Wow, that's a difficult question. You know, the what would my advice to? Obviously, i've never met a mask.
I don't think his body guards would allow IT in. I don't think his bodies, ards, boddie guards would allow IT. But the in any case, what would my advice? I mean, I think that basically there's a problem. The the great american rightwing billionaire may, who are very, not that I know this really these people, but like that, you know, many them are very great people, but they have a problem, which is that there are many the margin acts like such as myself and elon and and you know, I have spent a life involved with many dilly downing pursuits that have not been entirely successful.
And these people have been winning, right? So when you're winning, right in a way, you kind of get a little bit frozen in time because when you're winning, you don't really have any time for anything but like right, you know and so you're kind of frozen and Amber and kind of like nails world you have like name's libertarian head and you and from that time as well, like I remember sort of its greatness I remember it's like, you know, in a way, I was looking back on this and sort of the last doomed stand of like nate's libertarians m on the internet. We're like the redit wars of twenty fifteen and like because redit was sort of itself a kind of, in a way, a recreation of the only really great internet network which was used net, which in the eighties and nineties, which was my my long lost.
Love, I will always consider myself an exile from us. Nep, you know it's like, so one of the things just a product, he said, about being an exile like you once you an exile, you will always be an exile. And when you're an exile from a loss destroyed country, you know, yeah that's that's me and use that.
So anywhere, anywhere else on the internet is only second best rate. But but reddit was an attempt to create internet on the internet, on on the web, of course, as a centralized website. And all of these centralized web things know the whole le web two point of social network world.
IT is generally created by people who have this kind of techy nineties like libertarianism kind of view point. And you know, the problem is that by doing these things on centralized services, they created a pressure point. They created a point that in which power can act.
And once you have a point in which power can act, IT basically finds a reason to act, whether that reason is child sex trafficking, king got com or russian misinformation or like you've you know you've heard all all these links, you know some kind of mix of both. I mean, it's putin involved. Child sex trafficking wouldn't wouldn't put him past them, you know and wouldn't put him past them, you know and they the up and are you know or as I should say, actually really say what I talk, but that's accept the location.
You know, in in any case, they sort of created this pressure point. And like forrest, like the ot, you know, power will sort of finance a tone, an outlet and sort of IT create. And the sort of the way that ants will create a bridged across a stream or something like i'm not talking about the ants we know in love.
I'm talking about like freaky amazon, like army and shits, right? You know and and like it's just sort of finds this way and the sort of harm movie kind of way. And so it's suddenly everyone realized that allowing just like unfitted red speech on the internet was just wrong and bad.
And I was reading basically in twenty fifteen, the the management of redit of the civil war of redit was basically management realized that the times were changing, and they were gonna have to ban a number of reddit forms that really symbolized the edges of the red IT over ten window. And the redit over ten window was a bay window. IT was a dome.
IT was just, you could see anything, you could do anything. And the redit, you know, management decided that advertisers, I forget this is before contrasted after advertisers were not going to like IT. And so they had to ban in particular, are fat people hate and are going down.
In this sort of briggles ging explanation by, you know, whatever IT is, you know, the C E O for good. Hoffman, hoffman hofman you of of why? You know, like, no, you know, I realized, is that a british freedom speech? But you know, we are gonna to go ahead first.
They didn't ban com down, they didn't bank down. They put IT behind um you know like a firewall. They're like this is dangerous. You but if you really want you know the unsensitive our com down, you can still go. As as you know, obviously this is long lost all this dad has been the White from the internet, but I saw this and i'm like, okay, I have to go look at our coin town.
And the only thing I remember from our coin town, which of course vile vile like makes mozos ly look like the vatican right um you know all I remember is one user name which was and I quote I hit or four twenty blaze IT. So know there was just got of this lost world. You know, basically like like, you know if if your solution to the media, like time can never go backward, okay, the nineties had their great test, right? You know, with the idea that you're gonna roll on time backward so successfully at x dot com that you're going to roll back to twenty fifteen, turn back the clock time widely, cody, you know, goes back up the Cliff or whatever and and even read IT will turn back and you know I mean them so they still have the tapes that data somewhere probably been provided the FBI and reopen you know our country town in any other four twenty place IT well like up here start posting ah I don't know what are you posted right?
You know I hear you posted and the the no way to say, yeah yeah I kind of know that you know and the the you know other various ways mean math, chess, you know men excEllence or areas you know the the but you know no but the the i'm try you celebrate diversity here but but in any case, you know, not only is that not going to happen, that sort of the world is turned backward in this way, but also, if you turn to backward, looks like apology, just turn for the turn forward again. And so you know, the whole approach of when you kind of think of this nineties libertarian approach is like we're going to open up the barriers. We're going to let every ruins speak except arcon down is still that you but like we're going to like and and IT just doesn't work.
It's just like, you know and so for example, there was something that elon here's here's an example list so something elon twisted ones he's like when he was in the midst of his like war against the old blue checks where he's like, you know and in the new twitter, we want to have lords and peasants anymore. Everyone will be equal because this is america, right? I'm just like people like, you know, like like, like you so like I mean, it's like it's it's just so sad that nobody knows anything about history now because, you know, it's like the idea of a king you know what you have here is basically the classic king versus nobels you know sort of um issue right you know and often like you let's say like the phone in france or something and and or even you know most people sort of think of the english civil war is like, you know, the cavity of the novels, but actually the parliamentary body were the century really they were not like a rabel of like vietnam and black James or something, right? So but the thing is no really, really dukes.
But the thing is king versus novels is like an old thing, right, you know? But is something that sort of never really tried in the old king versus novos dynamic is for the king to say, h, i'm going to cancel all your novel titles and instead i'm gonna ll duke dums. For eight pounds a months, you know.
And IT just doesn't work because you you're basically doing you can actually take the power away from the blue checks. You can actually say, moreover, which you've done with these blue checks is you've done something very, very useful, which is that you've taken their informal status as basically nobels of the regime, which is much bigger than twitter or x dot com, as you call IT. Yes, twitter is spire is aspiring to be a pillar of the regime IT.
Maybe even, you know, could you imagine twitter as a pillar of the next regime? Yeah but i'd have to do a lot Better than is doing right now. Um you know elan keeps coming on and saying, well, you know you more eyeballs than ever.
You know when one of the reasons switch doesn't look work for links anymore is basically the algorithms are optimize to keep you on the site and the link takes you off the site, you know, i'm like you, right? right? And so the thing with, for example, with the blue checks is, okay, you formalize the status of a blue check.
That's amazing. okay? Check that and formalize IT even a little bit further, saying, okay, we're going to decide what the institutions in the mainstream media are. And if you're one of these.
come to what's a what's a reliable source?
What's a reliable source? simple. We're gonna have a list. It's actually a very revolutionary thing, say we're going to have a list because rather than inspiring them some god equality, it's actually this arbitrary contingent and human thing. It's like we have a list.
You know what's that mean to be a journalist or it's an official title that says you can steal information and sell IT? Okay, you know, that's what IT is. That's what IT is.
That's how IT works. Let's stop trying to talk about citizen journalism and pretend that everybody can steal information and sell IT. No, that's not how IT works.
Not everybody can steal information and sell IT. Guess what? You know what you know, this is a system of privilege.
It's the way IT works. Like suddenly you don't have an invisible government anymore. You have a visible government.
okay? And in making these people visible, and not only you're you're making these people visible, you're making this very valuable and essential professional credential that starts to mean more when it's actually like verified IT in some way. You know, I was shocking to founder in some company and they had a blue jack.
And that surprised me that this company had a check. And I was like, how do to get your blue check? And he was like, well, we throw a party once in, like, you know, twenty fifteen and there was a drunk guy who was like, man, I love you guys.
I can give you a blue jack or like now, but likes you're whatever, right? And then look at our account that was blue, right? So so clearly, there was a lot of like, you know, I think elon pointed out that there was a lot of shit going on and maybe even people were taking kickbacks.
And certainly, you know he can't be faulted for high for firing three quarters of these people you know in in making this site you know far more capable. But in terms of the impact of of twitter, which is what he spent forty four billion dollars were in terms of the impact of IT, to say that the impact of IT should be measured by the number of eyeballs on the site is just so profoundness stupid. That is like building a rocket powered by milk, right? Because like you're basically like if your goal is to make an impact, you're basically just looking around for something that's measurable.
More of the only reason why you want to measure that number is to show IT to advertise. But guess what, you drove all or drove all the way, drove away all the advertisers. So the only people advertising on my fucking feet are cheat and fucking ong, right?
You know so like then there's that right, you know um and and by the way, if you're starting a new media company, great outlet t for your work x dot com, because not only that, they are they looking for content really hard. Guess what? You can buy really cheap on next stock com at space, at space, right? So, brilliant, brilliant, really.
You should be a venture capitalist Young man. And at. Space right? So so so yeah you know but the thing is here's the thing, okay, it's IT would be amazing to like formalize these credentials and basically make twitter the primary intermediate or for reputation capital.
Basically, people are already interesting their fucking reputation capital with your fucking bank. You shut the fucking bank down and you burn the capital of their face. Alright, it's traveler checks. You can get IT back their work for the times. But the thing is, you fucked that up.
Okay, so let you know the the, the, um and and you know moreover, like this idea of saying I am basically have a share in everybody's valuable reputation capital, you know what? If I am a doctor and i'm my twitter, I should have a little red jx saying i'm a fucking in md. I should be able to get that you shown a picture of my da lessens whatever, right? I should be able to read medical device from only doctors on on x tot com, right? That's a no fucking brainer.
And instead you have this fucking blue check, which says, I paid a box to elon, you know, a month, which is like, dislike, negative piece of U I R. That isn't even useful to the people reading the site. It's the most developmental late thing i've ever heard of, right? You, I mean, I set a rocket powered by milk, milk house energy.
It's a rocket powered by water, right, you like. And so moreover, the thing that actually you could do with that, that would be even more amazing, especially if community notes, which will shortly be gained into non existence because its very primitive algorithm, needs to be constantly updated once people actually care about IT working wikipedia periodic and used to work too. Um you have to actually turn community notes into something that works as well of fucking court, if not Better.
And you know then you're developing real power if you're developing if you're saying OK, hey, you know we have a blue check out aristocracy, but maybe we also build our own aristocracy. Maybe, granted, pervert gets purple check because everybody realizes the brand age. Pervert is like the dawn of this world.
Is was a man who can, you know, pronounce ancient greek and with the proper accents and tones and until you all a bit plato um in its imminent accent right. And okay, um maybe we have some way of figuring out that this is a person for whom people have a great respect in the same way that people have great respect for the new york times, but in a different way. So maybe there's a different color check there.
You don't want to see content from fucking in twitter frogs click about you'll never see you again, right? But the thing is you're actually your building structure, your building in your building sort of a reputation capital structure which is tied up with your capital structure ex dot cos you're profiting also over the off of this thing is that you're creating you know, you have basically a fight that's been going on on twitter dot coms since covas started between these fuck in your noble shields who created this this virus, and like real biologists who have been investigating basically the drastic team who's been actually investigating the source of a of an accident that killed twenty million people. Wow, basically the people who are empower trying to cover IT up.
This is the story of the fucking century and you're not making money off of that and you're not doing anything to basically amplify the people that should be winning and you know defeat to people that should be losing, right? And and so you know there's a zillion trillion, if you sort of of of of x dot com as an the latest thing rather than a democratic thing. Are you, for example, one of the things you, these these fucking in tech people all hate.
They love their algorithms ation. They hate like human factors. This is why one reason why hollywood keeps kicking your ask, because hollywood knows actually human curation works and is actually necessary and essential. Or all you get is fucking cavities OS.
right? You and I like a good cat video as well as anything, but what is a cat video? What impact is a cat video have on the world? IT doesn't be part of an impact on cats, you know and like and so so like what you know what are you doing?
We are forty four billion dollars like user money to buy power. But you're not using IT to build power. What the fuck right? So like yeah you know um for another example the whole is the whole punishment side of twitter.
The punishment side is very important. I remember when people you know the twitter start banning started happening. I guess this is around the time that um you know our coon town you know um went went to join radiation in the sky.
You know press have to pay respect um the um you know i'm sure higher twenty blaze that is there's somewhere too you know you know that they started you know people started being banned from twitter for for wrong thing and that with people were like, wow, you know I joined this like you really cool, amazing, like cafe and then suddenly he became a cafe with mysterious, but the test experiences, right? So, you know, one of the things of that astonishes me about mid mysterious midnight disappearances is that this and they disappeared all of your previous contents as well as is fascinating unpersuaded. right? Totally destroyed.
Like links, whatever. Like, imagine linking to X T. com.
Now it's pathetic, right? I know the elan, elan. I know the web is dying. I know the web is dead, but you don't actually have to kill IT. It's like, you know you don't need the eyeballs that up of the eyeballs get the quality and the eyeballs will follow.
Uh but you know the the and get the fucking marijuana ads off my I know the but also you know in terms of skin having a punishment process, if you basically think in this sort of classic american sense, we wanted to feat the state. We don't want to state. We don't want a government, know, government that.
And then the thing is, you hate this thing. You end up doing this. You do IT badly, right? And whether if you actually believe that human in original sin, and that human beings are fundamentally flawed species, and we evolve original sin, and evolutionary psychology obviously are telling you basically the same thing, right?
Catholic dog men, science CER like like this, you know, right? So then you believe the man needs to be governed, and especially he needs to be govern you in real life, but especially he needs to be govern online. And when he's govern online, of course he be, you know, in addition to help banding, there's something that I think cara news used to do this, where they help band you by making the site so slow.
IT was unusable. You know, like like this is, you know, the online punishment equivalent of, like the iron made in right? And and just a horrible, horrible thu b cracking devices, right? You know and and absolutely brilliant, right.
And so, you know, is the king in supreme lord of x dot com as the certain all of these powers are within your command, like you you can absolutely have the client, you know, help ban people by being so slow IT was merci usual, right, you know? And and you have you on the clients just just throttle right, you know? And and so again, basically, if you were aspiring to be a king, you should think like a king and not like a fucking bandit, cheap flight.
The bandit chief is like, there should be no law. There should be no laughter. Let's lute, what we can, let's still stuff.
The king is like, you know, no, we have come to this land to restore justice, right? You know? And so, for example, when you ban users, some of the fractures shows up register in an account.
Is this first tweet right? How are you going to decide whether that first to we should be shown, or whether the this foreigner should be banned eternally? Well, I think A I would be do a pretty good job of that. I think basically, if your first tweet doesn't pass an A I filter, that's fine. If i've got two hundred and fifty thousand followers, and I maybe I maybe do a literary post right now, maybe put a literal IT right, you know? And you know the process that I should go through to determine whether that is acceptable or are unacceptable.
Shit, posting deed or violation that I committed could be more expensive IT can be more complicated IT could be more transparent IT can be more open IT can be more public IT can basically be saying, you know, no, like we are going to a, have a curter, a judge, a man of wealth and taste. Look at if you're gonna ban the lifetime output of bronze age pervert, okay, which was done several times of the old regime. Like you should have someone who is really a judge, really has a judicious card, and who, of course, in the traditional monarchy, the king is the chief judge.
You can appeal that the king, if this guy gets wrong, you know, and your bronzed perverts, and last, the appeal, save me from the acts, would lean on the line, must desk with a brief, and he would see that brief and he would say, no, this guy should posted too much. He's got to go or he would be like, you know what, I love this stuff, you know, and you can say, you, are those things right? And the thing is basically like if you have, again, if you're doing that and you're comfortable, the idea of power being like, you know, one of the problems I have is that there isn't really award as good as shit lib.
But for libertarians, people say liberta dian is just not doesn't have that like, but if you're a fucking libertarian and you don't believe in power, then you can use these mechanisms to build power. And you see instantly that, especially if this know the romans, as you may know, how these two words for power, which are a little confusing, because these are translate into english wrong, they are imperium and authorities. And imperium is the right to do whatever the fuck you want.
Like elon banning the account, that stacking elon jet, that's fucking imperor right, you know? And like I, I played that. Like, you just, you don't fuck with the king, right?
You and like, ideally the laws are enforcing, you don't fuck with anyone, but also you definitely don't fuck with the king, right? But but the the atos, which means is translated, is is transliterated authority means informal authority IT means respect. IT means consent.
Ideally, the judge rules not just because he has the power to tell the cops what to do on the cops set to can do anything to you because he has guns, but the judge is also deeply respected in the community, right? You and when you had when you combine these sources of power, when authority c, when imperium, an author come together, then you have really a mighty force. And like and it's sort of like when I see twitter kind of digin going in the not quite in the direction of truth, social or even gave, you know, going sort of dawn scale.
Like I don't think you will go down hill as far as those things. I don't think like like toxic or von IT is too bad. And I think also it's sort of interesting to observe the like massed on and blue sky like as competitors because I think blue sky in particular is very technically well done, master on kind of old tech.
But the guys behind bu sky very, very competent and and yet basically and and this is close to and know the sort of strategy of like we're going to build a decentralize protocol, but it's going to start out to centralize and kind of evolved to decentralized. Also very well done, also very solidly thought out. And yet basically, from my casual observation, does anyone uses this word anymore? The decentralize twitters, which have no involvement from the federal government whatsoever, do not violate biden, vee, missouri, whatever, actually seem much more paused than twitter ever worse, and and which is a very interesting effect and involves the audiences IT involves the moderators.
Because, of course, these are both moderated services in its own way. Blue sky has gone so far that is built a very interesting kind of stack moderation thing, where you can actually substitute different moderation things of different perspectives, very, very. But of course, anything that uses the built in blue sky client has to use blue guides, official moderation services service, which is, needless to say, post. And the the eyes is kind of in our cake. The people still say post.
not not common vireos no.
no but you is really old. It's like old twenty fifteen twitter discours really like, yeah but but it's you know yeah and and let's just say it's the opposite of based and so like you kind of see where I think where the the the fundamental identity of liberalism and libertinism basically makes libertinism just this extremely effective weapon against liberalism because actually it's really is just the same thing. It's sort of reminds me of when I first got into not thinking, you know, your councils, everything I was reading this like kind of modern, I think they still exist like motor, like light libertarian blogs, like member indepndence. You go back .
to install ponant.
It's been a time log, father. You know, glen reno, he's law professor, the universe, tennessee independent how and still I think he's still at there. He was microblogging before. Microblogging was in and made, I am know, amazing, hard work or defective, intelligent, curious, you know, all of these things, you know and and he was really he he was really a number of this book that came out. I think there was a um there were two books.
One of them was called army of David, right? And thern was called a starfish, not a spider, because you see, like David is a small and weak, like a blogger, and and a star fish is completely decentralized, and you can pull off any leg of a star fish, and that would regenerate into a new starting fish, right? And, you know, I was looking this, and something, something about the sort of a way of thinking seemed a little self satisfied because, of course, you know, needless to say, your army of David is not organized like an army doesn't command, you know, there's no like cell.
It's not fucking moitie like, no, it's like we're all, you know, the tea parties. Remember the tea party, remember the tea party? That was a real army of David.
That was like the aroma of David. And these guys love the tea party. And and and they really believed in the tea party. And and and I to remember, and I remember just thinking once about, you know, the title of this book, you know, a starfish, not a spider, and actually came to me, know, I had this been moment of insight, almost like, devastating is like the know, you know, in in apocalypse now when when kernel l curse was is like and then they cut the children's arms off, know, I replace that they would win and and I was just like, like and I was like, you know, see, see this whole starfish thing put, you know that what if we just built a fuck in spider? You know, like something like, I like staff you we would like them because you know.
So there's that right, you know and i'm not saying start a militia, you know and um the but but there's is kind of this wrong attitude and like that let's let's non build like this non organism like a starfish, right? And and I think that when you have basic play, a sort of when you escape from ninety's libertinism and are basically like, no, the problem is not how do we bring down the regime? The problem is how do we replace IT with something else that's such a deeply different problem.
And they have some things in common, but only some things. And Frankly, one of them is realistic, another isn't. And so you can do many seemingly realistic things like making movies that make fifteen million dollars or whatever child sex trafficking dot com, you know.
But fundamentally, you're trying to do something unrealistic, which is your Operating this unreal space where like king George to the third but a child sex trafficker is like in charge, right? You know and and it's just not like that. It's not like that at all. And if you're actually Operating in the real world, you basically have some like actual chance of success.
And even though IT seems like what you're doing is much more difficult, if you imagine all taking all of the resources that are invested into Operating in unreality and putting them into Operating in this realistic like some tiny fraction of them into Operating in this kind of realistic way where you try to build authority authorities, where you're trying build power rather than just like, you know, spit in the face of power, uh because you know it's just the american tradition that spitting in the face of powers is the way to bring IT down. And no, that is not even in my mind to correct reading of the american revolution, much less the world that we live in today. Make sense.
Yes, I want to be minded of your time. Is that a great place to rap in time?
I would, I would be a fun place to rap. You have any more quick and obvious questions that they come.
Well, maybe just a any plugs you to have our audience with. This has been a great, a deep tire to how to build the next times vice elon and any black chromes you, anna.
leave a come, come on, come. Well, you know. I I think despite everything i've said about illan, you know i'm really attracted by this new platform, max. And you may see me there actually at some point, but for now but for now, you can find me a great mirror on sub stack dot com that's gray with an a the american way. And thank you so much for tuning in.
What's .
right? Thank you so much. Can take care.
Upstream with athon bird is a show from a turpenay, the podcast network behind moment of them and coding or revolution. You like the episode, please leave your view in the apple store.